This was my second year attending IIeX (Insight Innovation Exchange) and it was great to learn about so many innovative new approaches, technology, and suppliers in the market research space. Below are the top 6 themes that I took away from IIeX 2016--what's new and what's next in insights! Key Insights Industry Trends: 1. The Commoditization of Research Execution
Key take-away: Automating non-value added work can be faster, cheaper and more accurate. However, it can never replace an actual human for creativity, influencing and engaging, convincing and telling stories. 2. Bite-sized, Right Sized
Key take-away: In our information-overload, time-starved world, collecting and communicating data in bite-sized amounts can increase engagement all around. 3. Storytelling Everywhere
Key take-away: Emotion is required for action, whether it’s consumer buying behavior or client/stakeholder decision making, and nothing gets to emotions better than a good story. 4. Rise of Machine Learning
Key take-away: Advances in machine learning mean that computers can take over hours of laborious hand-coding of text and emotion—it’s not perfect yet, but it is much more scalable. 5. Visualization Drives Clarity
Key take-away: Visualization in survey design can help increase accuracy (e.g. visual scales, pictures + words), while in reporting and strategy documents, it’s a way to bring the content to life. 6. Behavioral Research: Actions Speak Louder
Key take-away: Identify research respondents via actual behavior (vs. claimed) to increase accuracy. Also, brain science tells us that most decisions are made unconsciously, so don’t rely only on what people say, but also consider implicit and behavioral findings.
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This post spotlights the capability of Landscape Assessment. For those not familiar with term, I'm not talking about evaluating shrubbery, but rather assessing the landscape of a particular market, industry, category or consumer group. Here are a couple questions that Landscape Assessment addresses:
Assessing the landscape is often done to identify whitespace opportunities for innovation as well.
Here are a few mini case studies from my experience to illustrate how Landscape Assessment could help you: Expanding an established category: a personal needs category wanted to expand beyond their core business, but needed to understand the market dynamics and trends in the new space to confirm the opportunity and help develop a pipeline of innovation. I conducted a comprehensive trends and landscape assessment across products and services, which included: demographic trends, consumer attitudes & behaviors, cultural norms, and competitive benchmarking. Management was inspired by the sizable unmet needs in the new space and committed the investment needed to start development. Launching a new vertical: an accessories manufacturer wanted to create a new premium line of products with a different consumer target, price point, and distribution channel, but didn't have any internal expertise on this new section of the industry. I led an extensive market landscape with secondary research (e.g. internet/desk research, syndicated reports, etc.), which, combined with the insights from a custom quantitative study, gave them the direction they needed for both the immediate launch and future strategy in a highly time and cost-efficient way. Identifying sources of future innovation: a global energy company wanted an approach to identify potential sources of new inventions and ideas for an internal innovation incubator program. This was a unique challenge, but I was able to use my experience in the startup space to compile a list of resources for finding entrepreneurs and innovators with a potentially applicable invention or idea. I also conducted deep searches of social media and networking sites to identify specific high-potential clubs, groups, pages, networks, forums, etc. to connect with industry-relevant individual inventors/startups. "Let's grab coffee!" "Can I pick your brain?" "[Our mutual acquaintance] suggested we meet." Live meetings are what really count when it comes to networking, particularly the first meeting with a new connection. Whether you’re looking for information or advice, trying to advance your career, or making a pitch, that initial meeting sets the stage for all future interactions (or lack thereof) so be ready to make the most of it by following these 5 tips.
Networking doesn’t have to be painful or cheesy—setting the meeting up for success, opening with a recap, listening more than you talk, asking for additional connections and looking for ways you can help them will all help you to maximize these valuable opportunities and build your network further. |
AuthorSarah Faulkner, Owner Faulkner Insights Archives
July 2021
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